Briefing room

Washington DC is beset by hot weather and an outbreak of a particularly violent gastric flu virus. Amidst it, vice-president Selina Meyer works to advance her "clean jobs taskforce" and a bill reforming the US Senate's voting procedures. When the White House signals its support of the taskforce and an influential senator appears to back the bill, Meyer is giddy with achievement, even when the senator demands a difficult quid pro quo on the taskforce membership, which Meyer agrees.

The effect of the virus clears Meyer's schedule and she arranges for a photo opportunity with "normals" (non-politicians) at a local frozen yoghurt shop – which is interrupted by news that the president is unwell on an overseas trip, and Meyer is escorted to the White House situation room for briefings, while struggling to disguise her glee.

But the president's illness is soon over and Meyer must return to the mundane world of the frozen yoghurt photo op, whereupon she is abruptly overtaken by the virus and ends up soiling herself.

Senate cloakroom

Someone once wrote that there were only three things wrong with England's cricket team: they can't bat, they can't bowl and they can't field. In contrast there's only one thing wrong with HBO's comedy Veep: it isn't funny. It's like an episode of The West Wing but without the laughs.

In a cruel coincidence, BBC America started showing the most recent series of The Thick Of It on Saturday night. One minute in, Malcolm Tucker describes a politician: "He's so dense that light bends around him." In last night's Veep a politician gets described as "a real hogfucker". Mmm.

Last week's Veep pilot episode was slim pickings, and this week's episode, Frozen Yoghurt, was less of the same, as the series appears to be tipping over into surrealism in a search for comedic value. The final moments – the vice-president of the United States desperate to hide in her limo to avoid crapping herself in public – were a metaphor for the whole. And I don't mean the vice-presidency. I think I got more laughs out of the latest episode of AMC's The Killing, a show that is suddenly introducing more new characters than a Klingon phrasebook.

So why isn't Veep funny? Well, it's not The Thick Of It but then it's not Yes Minister or Dad's Army either. The US version of The Office isn't the British version (at least, not after the first season) but that didn't stop it being successful. The real problem is that too much of Veep is hung around Julia Louis-Dreyfus and she just can't carry the role. She was the straightest character in Seinfeld and she's the straightest character here, and the show hits a JLD-shaped logjam when scenes have to pivot around her.

So in Frozen Yoghurt the few scenes where JLD doesn't appear – and there aren't many, which is the problem – actually get some zest to them: when Dan and Gary spar en route to the meeting with Senator Doyle, and when Dan and Mike fight in the frozen yoghurt shop, for example.

In contrast JLD's Meyer openly displays her glee at hearing that the president may be ill. Satire isn't satire if it's bald-faced. And then there's Meyer's response to hearing good news about the jobs taskforce.

Meyer: Oh that is so great for me.

Other person: And the country.

Meyer: Yes, and me.

Maybe there's a comedian somewhere who could inject wit into those hamfisted lines but it certainly isn't Julia Louis-Dreyfus.

Speaking of things that certainly aren't the case: a new character is introduced in the form of a Washington Post journalist nicknamed "the Beltway Butcher". That is hilarious in itself, since the only things the Washington Post butchers inside the Beltway are (a) the English language and (b) the art of photography.

Best line of the episode

On the chances of Senate reform being passed by the Senate: "That would be like persuading a guy to fist himself."